The Wedding Wager

by Hale Deborah

  Chapter Twenty

  Soon after Morse departed on his wedding errands, an unshaven, hollow-eyed Algie sought out Leonora.

  “I’ve never felt so ashamed of myself!” Slumped on a chair in the sitting room, he cradled his head in his arms.

  “Come now.” She patted his shoulder. “It can’t be as bad as all that. You haven’t got a wicked bone in your body.”

  “Oh, I acted with the best of intentions.” Fumes of stale tobacco smoke and sour brandy rose from Algie’s hair and clothes. The latter looked as though they’d been slept in. “But you know what they say about good intentions and the road to hell.”

  Leonora struggled to keep a bubble of welcome amusement in check. “I don’t think that’s quite what the saying means. Now what exactly did you do? Are you certain it can’t be undone?”

  “I hope it can.” Algie sighed—his fervor comically at odds with his dissipated appearance. “That’s why I came to confess, Leonora. So you can help me figure out a scheme to put things right again. You’re so awfully clever.”

  If she was so clever, why was the man she loved about to wed another woman?

  “There are more important things than being clever, Algie.” She hadn’t thought so until recently. She’d prided herself on her learning and her sense. On the calm rationality that curbed a capricious heart.

  “There are?”

  Leonora nodded. “There’s kindness. And trust. Even charm isn’t a bad thing in moderation. Let’s hear what you have to say for yourself. Confession’s supposed to be good for the soul.”

  “It’s Morse.”

  “What have you done to him?”

  “Only pushed him with both hands into a marriage that’s certain to make him perfectly miserable.”

  Poor Algie could not have pushed Morse any harder than she had. Whichever of them bore the greater responsibility, Leonora could not bear to think of him being perfectly miserable. From what she’d seen of his fiancée’s family, she feared it might be true. Or was she just playing dog in the manger again?

  “I thought you considered the match an ideal one.” She tried to jolly Algie out of his black mood. Not an easy task when she’d have preferred to wallow with him in self-pity and self-blame. “Miss Hill’s beautiful, agreeable, and has plenty of money. Morse is handsome, agreeable, and has none.”

  Algie shook his head slowly, as if afraid to agitate it. “Remember last night at the Guildhall when you asked me to chat up Eustace Fitzwarren?”

  Only vaguely. “Why? What did you find out?”

  “Once the ball broke up, a few of the lads went off for a private card party on Gay Street.” He winced at the memory. “Fitzwarren was pretty well in his cups by then and didn’t need much urging to talk about his wife’s family.”

  “I see.” Leonora was not sure she wanted to hear what Algie had to tell her. Difficult enough to get on with her own life, imagining Morse blissfully happy.

  “I gather Miss Hill isn’t nearly so agreeable in private as she is in public.”

  Leonora had seen a glimpse of that. Still, a woman’s conduct with her detested stepmother could hardly indicate how she would treat her husband.

  “As for the money,” continued Algie, “Mr. Hill still has hopes of getting a son by his second wife, so the daughters have almost nothing in their own right. Papa keeps them on a tight rein by pulling the purse strings. As for Mrs. Hill, you’d be shocked speechless if I told you what she’s got up to with her own stepdaughter’s husband.”

  “Perhaps not as shocked as you think, Algie.”

  Lady Pamela had once wanted Morse at her service in Mr. Hill’s household. After he and Frederica were married he could not keep his identity a secret from her stepmother for long. When she discovered it, she would have him in her power.

  “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” Algie moaned.

  No. The fault is mine.

  “Oh, don’t be silly!” Was she trying to convince Algie—or herself? “Nobody forces Morse Archer to do anything he doesn’t want. Once you tell him what you’ve told me, he’ll break the engagement and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “Give a fellow credit for a little sense.” Algie cast her a withering look. “Do you think I’d have come pestering you if talking to Morse had done any good?”

  The champagne in Leonora’s stomach soured. “You’ve spoken to him already?”

  “Didn’t I just say so?”

  “And told him everything you’ve told me?”

  Algie squirmed in his seat. “Rather more than I told you, as a matter of fact. Being man-to-man and all that.”

  “What did he say?” Better than anyone, she knew how Morse loathed taking orders and being controlled. She couldn’t imagine he’d go willingly into the kind of situation Algie had described.

  “That’s the trouble.” Algie rose and began to pace the room. “He didn’t say much of anything. Just heard me out then told me to get to bed and sleep it off.”

  “That’s all?”

  “My memory of the interview isn’t as clear as it might be,” Algie admitted. “Due to the lateness of the hour and my own vile state of intoxication. He has no intention of backing out of the match, that much I did grasp. I think he may have said something—more to himself than to me—about it not making any difference because he knew what he had to do.”

  “And I know what I have to do,” muttered Leonora, more to herself than to Algie, as she sent him off to wash and change. She didn’t really, but hammering some sense into the thick skull of a certain ex-Rifleman seemed like a positive start.

  Some giant invisible blacksmith had his skull between hammer and anvil!

  Morse staggered out of the open carriage in which Mr. Hill had shipped him home to Laura Place. During the drive he’d felt like a human trophy on display. Several people had called out to him as the gig passed, and he’d made an effort to acknowledge them with a forced smile and a limp wave. The afternoon’s endless discussion of wedding plans had his thoughts racing in dizzying circles. And to top it all off, he’d had his first row with Frederica.

  She’d been tearfully vexed by some gossip’s report of his laughing and talking in private with another woman just before the announcement of their betrothal. He’d done his best to placate her, without actually lying through his teeth.

  It had proven a difficult balancing act. How could he swear Leonora meant nothing to him when she was his chief reason for going ahead with this marriage? Frederica had her good qualities and he would do his best to be an attentive husband. Must she try to command a level of devotion he could not supply?

  As he approached the front door of Sir Hugo’s house, Leonora breezed out with Algie and Miss Taylor in her wake. If he hadn’t known better, Morse would have sworn they’d been lying in wait for him.

  “Morse, are you ill?” asked Leonora. “You look a fright.”

  He tried to make light of it. “Only a headache.”

  “They must be contagious.” She nodded at Algie. “Your friend has one, too. Elsie and I decided a bit of fresh air before dinner might be just the cure he needed. So we’re off for a stroll around Sydney Gardens. Will you join us?”

  Morse doubted Sydney Gardens would do anything beneficial for his head. Unless walking aggravated his leg enough to take his mind off it. But the three of them looked so anxious for his company—even Miss Taylor. This might be the last chance for them to be together, as they had at Laurelwood. Weighed in the balance against that, even his throbbing temples came up short.

  Morse shrugged his unconditional surrender. “I suppose anything’s worth a try. Sydney Gardens’s air is a sight more palatable than Bath mineral water.”

  Leonora and Miss Taylor unfurled their parasols and they all set off up Great Pulteney Street. To Morse’s surprise, they had not gone far when his headache did begin to ease. The tightness in his neck and shoulder loosened, and his spirits began to rise.

  May sunshine burnished the hues of nature like
the great colored windows of Bath Abbey. The sky had never looked such a deep, vivid blue, nor the clouds so soft a white. The grass and the trees each seemed to possess their own unique luster of green. Morse wondered if the world would ever look so beautiful to him again. He pushed the thought away, unwilling to let it shadow this special moment.

  Algie and Miss Taylor carried most of the conversation, as a gap gradually widened between them and the other two. Morse ambled along at a very easy pace—to spare his leg. Or so he told himself.

  Leonora did not seem eager to catch up with their companions, either. At length Morse discovered why.

  Without any preparatory throat-clearing, praise of the weather, or even turning to look at him, she spoke. “Algie told you about his talk with Sir Eustace Fitzwarren.”

  Morse’s jaw tightened and his headache threatened to return with a vengeance. “Don’t let’s start on that now, please. I’d rather enjoy our time here.”

  She continued to stare ahead at Algie and Miss Taylor. Her voice soft and moderate, as though she did not want to call anyone’s attention to what she was telling him. “It’s no good, you know. When I was a child, I used to pull a bonnet over my face and think no one could see me because I couldn’t see them.”

  “What were you hiding from inside that little bonnet, Leonora?” Part of him wanted to distract her, but another part of him sincerely wanted to know. To understand what made her think and act as she did.

  “Oh, no you don’t, Sergeant Archer. No feint attack with your right flank to protect your center line. You can’t mean to go through with this wedding knowing what you know about Miss Hill’s family.”

  A squirrel dashed across the path in front of them. Some rebellious streak within Morse wanted to flee Bath and Frederica Hill and the wedding wager just as swiftly. He didn’t need Leonora spooking him worse.

  “What would you have me do?” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “Break off my engagement? I can guess how Mr. Hill would react. Why, he’d think nothing of calling out a brigade of Bow Street Runners to mount an assault on Captain Archibald’s reputation. And when he discovered he’d been duped by a commoner who used to be his wife’s footman…”

  Realizing his voice had risen, Morse hesitated. Then he continued more quietly. “Let’s just say my true identity would be common knowledge throughout Bath within the hour. And your wager would be lost.”

  “But Uncle’s already conceded defeat.”

  If only she knew how he longed to justify his selfish actions with that same argument.

  For an instant Morse wavered. Then he shook his head in the face of temptation. “Out of generosity and good faith, Sir Hugo settled his debt to us early. With the understanding that I’d continue to act the gentleman for the rest of the Season. He could have tried to wriggle out of it, for it was plain the outcome broke his heart. I can’t go and throw the wager over now because circumstances no longer suit me.”

  “Damn your honorable hide, Morse Archer!” She seemed no longer to care who might overhear them. “I’ve made a gentleman of you and now you’re throwing it back in my face. Do you love Miss Hill so much you refuse see what this marriage will cost you? Or perhaps you’re attracted by the notion of taking up with Mrs. Hill where the pair of you left off ten years ago!”

  A week earlier such an insinuation from her would have goaded him into some act of spite and proud folly. Today, Morse stopped walking and turned to look at Leonora. “Are you trying to make me so angry I’ll throw the wager on purpose?”

  Above a guilty grin, her eyes searched his. “Could it work?”

  How he wished it might. “Sorry.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  Slowly he lifted his hand and with the lightest touch of his forefinger caressed her chin. That indomitable little chin—always thrust out to meet the world. To convince everyone she was invulnerable. Herself, most of all.

  “You know neither of those women will ever mean half to me what you do. That is why I’ll honor the terms of this wager, Leonora. Because I have faith in your dreams and I cherish your independence. You do believe that, don’t you?”

  She was silent for a moment, as though looking within herself for the truth. A solid, burdensome truth, but one she owed him at all cost.

  “Yes.” So quietly the word escaped her that Morse might have mistaken it for a soft breeze rustling the leaves.

  Yet that brief whispered word seemed to crack a flood wall of reserve. “Yes, I believe you, Morse. How arrogant of me to say I have made you a gentleman. You have always been a gentleman at heart.”

  Morse wrested his hand back from her face. If he let it linger, he might succumb to his longing to kiss her. Drawing in a deep breath of spring air, he made himself turn away and begin walking again.

  “I’m glad we’ve had this talk.” It had heartened him to do what he must. “Don’t fret for me, lass. I’m not quite as spineless a jelly as poor Fitzwarren. You build that school and make it a credit to us. There’s only one thing I wish I knew.”

  “Oh?”

  “Why you’re so set against marriage? Is it because you think you couldn’t have your school and be wed, both? Or did you think no man would ever offer, so you convinced yourself you didn’t want one to?”

  She walked along in silence beside him for so long, Morse was convinced she had no intention of replying. He wasn’t even certain he’d expected an answer.

  At last she spoke. “I’ll tell you, Morse, since you’ve asked. I owe you far more than that, so I’d better repay what little I can. Only, not here. Not now.”

  He was prepared to accept that. So they walked, coming back circular fashion to the park entrance. Slowly catching up to Algie and Miss Taylor, who chatted away like lifelong friends.

  “Not now,” Leonora repeated in a whisper that barely caught Morse’s ear. “But soon.”

  She would have to act soon.

  Soon. Before old fears paralyzed her or old aspirations called her with a siren song, luring her from the path she knew was right. As they walked home from Sydney Gardens, Leonora steeled herself for it.

  If Morse would not break his engagement, then she must find some means to break it for him. But what means?

  Too late to throw another suitor in Frederica’s way—even if one could be found to equal Morse’s appeal. Though she was no great admirer of Miss Hill, Leonora acknowledged the young lady’s good taste in men.

  Might she convince Morse’s fiancée he was addicted to a number of fashionable vices? Or perhaps…She recalled something Pamela Hill had said to her at the ball for Colonel Maxwell—about Frederica’s jealousy of her particular friendship with Morse. Could there be a way to play on that?

  The problem, Leonora decided at last, was that two very strong-willed people were resolved to see Morse wed to Frederica Hill. Miss Hill herself. And her father.

  Herbert Hill had his heart set on acquiring another wellborn son-in-law, esteemed by the gentry. Since Captain Archibald filled the bill to perfection, Frederica’s father would most likely wink at any peccadillo that might otherwise cause his daughter to throw Morse over.

  Exposing Morse’s identity might dampen Mr. Hill’s enthusiasm for the match, but would it extinguish the young lady’s ardor? Or might she decide to brave her father’s reproach and make a love match in spite of him?

  From what Leonora had seen of her, Miss Hill was a creature of excessive romantic sensibility. If she insisted on retaining her connection to Morse in spite of his birth and lack of fortune, he would consider himself bound to honor his proposal.

  There was no help for it—Morse’s identity must come out. Moreover, it must come out in such a way that Miss Hill would break the engagement herself.

  “Were you able to talk some sense into him?” Algie asked, after Morse had left for the evening.

  Leonora shook her head. “Didn’t I tell you no one makes Morse Archer do anything?”

  “What’s to be done, then?”
<
br />   “The only thing that can be done when a frontal assault looks futile, Algie. We must resort to subterfuge.”

  His high brow furrowed in an unasked question.

  “A ruse,” said Leonora. “A trick.”

  “Oh, a trick!” Algie nodded vigorously. “What kind of trick, exactly? Can I help?”

  “You’ll see by and by. And you can help by not breathing a word of this to Morse.”

  He raised his hand, as if swearing an oath. “Not a peep, upon my honor.”

  Though her nerves fairly jangled at the thought of her desperate plan, Leonora could not help smiling at him. “I knew I could count on you.”

  She could count on Algie. Though she must give up on the notion of founding a school, he might be persuaded to provide the funds for Elsie Taylor to start one. They would never have to leave Laurelwood and Uncle Hugo would be beside himself with happiness. Better she should have to wed such a kind fellow, than go on to fulfil her dreams at the expense of Morse’s freedom.

  Algie turned to go, but she called him back. “Could you hunt up Elsie and tell her I must speak to her in the library?”

  “My pleasure. Anything else?”

  “Just one.” Leonora stared down at the toes of her slippers and tried in vain to fight back a blush. “Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever…fuss may arise, however bad it looks, you will remember it’s the only way to extricate Morse from the Hills?”

  Algie pulled a face. “You make it sound so dire, old girl. But you mustn’t worry on my account. A Blenkinsop is loyal to his friends through thick and thin.”

  Choking on a great lump of guilt and gratitude, Leonora rose on the tips of her toes and planted a kiss upon Algie’s lean cheek. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve a friend like you. Now go find Elsie before I lose my nerve.”

  Once he’d gone and she had regained something of her composure, Leonora slipped into Sir Hugo’s deserted library. Plucking a piece of paper from one of the slots in her uncle’s writing desk, she selected a pen with a reasonably sharp nib and dashed off a brief note.

  She had just signed her name at the bottom when Elsie arrived. “Mr. Blenkinsop said you needed me, miss.”